The Spark

Friday 6:20pm

The Spark is WMRA's own creative look at --well-- creativity. We dig into whatever people are passionate about in the WMRA region: sculpture, model railroading, costume-making, poetry, whatever.

Please note that while we no longer produce The Spark as a full-length program (due to Martha Woodroof's retirement), her interviews continue to appear within our Friday broadcast of All Things Considered.

We want to hear from those who are doing artsy or interesting or wonderful or obsessive things. We also recognize that lots of creatives are a tad shy and might not ever speak up for themselves.

You can put something on our radar about yourself or can tell us about someone you know of who might be interesting by sending an e-mail to the show host, Martha Woodroof:WoodroMH@jmu.edu(To launch an email to Martha automatically click here. )

Scroll down to hear past segments.

Consider this a community-wide celebration of the many people among us who invest time, energy and discipline into pushing against life's boundaries.

Listen to a typical 2012 version of the show's end credits (including Martha asking to hear from those who know about creative goings-on) : here (60 seconds).

On this episode of The Spark : “Five Things the Church Can Learn from Women’s Roller Derby” is a Kelly Figueroa-Ray essay for the Huffington Post . Religion-blogger Kelly Figueroa-Ray has a divinity degree from Wesley and also actually does do roller derby --under the rinkname Bible ThumpHer .

On this episode of The Spark : Essayist and poet Greg Wrenn has been diving since he was a child growing up in Florida. His new nonfiction book will be what he describes as a, "literary time capsule," describing what it's like to dive amidst the astonishing biodiversity of the reefs of Indonesia's Raja Ampat Archipelago . He wants to write the book, Greg says, because he expects the still-pristine reefs to begin to deteriorate in the next twenty years.

On this episode of The Spark : Martha speaks with Mollie Cox Bryan, who has gone from pies to murder... at least in her writing. Mollie Cox Bryan , the author of several Mrs. Rowe's cookbooks, now writes mysteries.

On this episode of The Spark : Waynesboro's Ian MacRae was a bit of a computer wunderkind. He began his first computer business while he was still in high school. Twenty years later EN Computers employs 22 people and has clients all over Virginia.

WMRA's Martha Woodroof and college football "spotter" Tony Britt (bonus: also CBS Sports/ESPN legend Brent Musburger) discuss Tony's special "cheat sheets" he developed for ESPN reporters and other sports media pros.

On this episode of The Spark : Mary Stickley-Godinez, of Countryside Farm and Nursery in Crimora, tells how she and her husband Raul met over plant pruning. And a bit about the art and science of pruning, as well.

On this episode of The Spark : Twenty-one year old Richy Rohrer took his first roofing job for a paycheck. He’s still at it because: a) he likes the challenge of the job; and b) he wants to be as good a roofer as he possibly can be.

Amanda McRaven was born and raised in Free Union. She’s a country girl, who fell in love with theater at an early age, and now she runs her own company Fugitive Kind in Los Angeles. She’s in Staunton this summer with two of her theater buddies to run Make Trouble Theater , an intensive theater experience for college students.

On this episode of The Spark : Connie Doebele retired to Staunton after 25 years on C-SPAN as a host and producer. She talks about how she went from her childhood on a Kansas farm, through radio news to politics, and from there on to C-SPAN.